Networked vetronics for armored combat vehicles is aim of French company team

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, 20 Feb. 2013. Two major French defense companies are working together to develop networked combat vehicles and vetronics with real-time communications among vehicles to share situational awareness and cooperative engagement, company officials announced.

Renault Trucks Defense in Saint-Priest, France and Thales Group in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, have reached a cooperation agreement on digitized vehicle systems for defense and security forces, officials announced this week at the IDEX international military exposition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The combat vehicles involved will include fighting vehicles as well as armored security vehicles equipped with a range of weapons, observation systems, and communications, depending on mission requirements.

The agreement concerns army surveillance and reconnaissance units, security forces, and special forces; battle groups of different types of combat and support vehicles; and security and law enforcement units for urban environments, company officials say.

Renault Trucks Defense and Thales also are working together on digitized vehicle systems for the VAB Mk3 armored personnel carrier announced at the Eurosatory 2012 exposition last summer in Paris.

Several months ago Renault Trucks Defense launched its Battlenet Inside system, which interconnects all the systems on an armored vehicle and enables them to operate collaboratively. Based on electronic architectures developed by Volvo, Battlenet Inside uses commercial off-the-shelf components that have been tested on large fleets of commercial vehicles, company officials say.

With Thales's VSYS-Net solution, vehicles are part of a digitized sphere of engagement, with crews working within vehicles and with other armored vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and artillery, command centers.

Through this partnership, Renault Trucks Defense and Thales propose what their engineers believe are the best and most affordable technical solutions on future programs, company officials say.